Social Media Data Cheat Sheet: What Executives Actually Want to Know

Understanding social media data can help you improve the quality of your social messaging, increase the number of followers, and widen your social reach. You may already have the skills it takes to make social data work for your business, but is your executive team up to speed with the advantages this information has to offer?

In order to convince your higher-ups of the real value of social media, you need to be strategic with the information you share. Your data should reveal how social media makes your marketing and customer support budgets last longer, have higher return on investment, and increasing your status as a thought leader in the field. But your bosses are busy, and don’t have too much time to pore over numbers and graphs. We’ve created this social media data cheat sheet to help you determine what data points should be the first ones you share.

Social media data cheat sheet:

Other helpful data points

Audience by country & language

Most analytics tools for major social networks can show you where in the world your followers are located, and what language they primarily use to communicate on that network. This information can help you determine the extent of your brand’s reach outside of your home country. This can, in turn, help you schedule your social messages to reach the majority of your audience in their time zones. It’s also helpful if your business is planning an expansion into a different region or country—it helps to increase brand awareness well in advance, and social media is the most cost-efficient way of doing this.

Engagement metrics

Insights into the performance of different social messaging, whether it’s organic or paid, can show which social channels need more investment of time or resources. You can measure the overall performance—likes, comments, retweets, etc.—or see how each network contributes to your business goals. For example, if your goal includes targeting an audience with certain characteristics, take a look at the most engaged demographics on each network. This can help you determine whether or not to pivot your content marketing strategy, or fine-tune the targeting on your paid social messaging. Engagement metrics also show you which messages resonate the most with your audience, and which ones can use a bit of work.